Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-11-21
HEALING BIZ mENTAL EXPRESSION.
Curing Wounds by HyprOtic suggs stiop-A
Scientlsra Inysstigation.


Professor Delboeuf of Liege IS certainly
the most versatile OF living investigators
when one considers the great originality
and suggestiveness Of all the work he
does. Ancient and modern languages
logic, general physics and physiology,
have received his attention by turns. His
latest contribution is 80 theraputti tics, and
Is in . communication made on June 4
to the Belgian Academy, which will
probably turn out TO be CT the greatest
theoretical Is well IS practical import
ance.
We al are tamil ar with accounts OF the
wounds inflicted on themselves by African
dervishes; but the statement winch the
narratois always make that the wounds
do not inf.me, or may be even quite
healed in twenty-four hours, pT5bsbly
often tends to di<credit their whole de-
scription in the readers mind. ell
boeut's observations now mske these
stories wholly plausible It is we'll es-
tablished that in Certain hypnotic subjects
suggestion made during trance, that to
8 part of their body csutery or blister
is applied, will produce, after due lapse
OF time, en- actual vesication of the skin
The hslluclnatory feeling of iraam-
nation produces in these persons genu-
inc Inflammation. NJ. Delooeuf argued
from this that the feeling of pain, how
ever useful in other respects, must itself
be an infammatory irritant, and went on
to infer that the abolition or it from an
actual wound ought to accelerate its
healing. He Immediately thought OF
some hypnotic subjects whom he had
| made au@sthetic, and in whom he had
often admired the rapidly with which the
marks of punctures and pinchiDgs disap-
peared, and proceeded to more systems-
| tic experiments, which, so far es they 60,
seem to verify his hypothesis perfectly.
| On young woman whom ne could
make insencible by suggestion, he marked
two corresponding spots, one on each
arm, and made on eaca sn identical burn
with the hot iron, announcing to tue Pc
tlent that the one on the right should not
| be felt. Tha suggestion took eff CT; and
the next day, when the bandages were
taken off, and the left arm presented G
vesicted sore with an iLhimmatorJ
area three centimetres in diameter, the
right arm showed only G clean scOrch q
| the skin of the exact size Of the iron
| (eight millimetres dlsmeteI), without
redness OR Inflammation. Ga another
subject similar results we're Obtained
win burns and blisters, the spO;s chosen
being near together On the arm or on the
neck. The experiments re few in num-
Der and ought to be multiplied; but the
reader will Immediately see the vists
which they. open.
Many, OF the results OF the ''mind
cure" and the strange fscr, so long
known, OF opium controlling ipf.mma
ton, are explained by NJ. Delsoeuf's sys-
TEN. So is the peculiar belief N "hard-
ening" ones self by little judicious in
difference and neglect of ones conditions.
Local pain is useful in leading Qs to pro-
tect the wounded part from mechanical
abrasion several Of NJ. Del
boeuf's experiments were in
conclusive, because the subjects,
being insenslble at the seat of their in
juries, ello wed them to get scrsped, exc.
but it has the drawback Of exciting re-
flex changes of nutrition of sn unfsvor-
able kind. Ar estheiiz,ng q wound pre-
vents these reflex changes. M. Delboeuf,
suggesting to very sensitive subject
that she should not feel q severe dental
operation, was assured by the dentist
that what he found most extraordinary in
the whole performance Was the absence
of the salivary sec elton which would
usually have accompanied it.